


Painted Ocean

by magnetar



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Anal Sex, Canon Universe, M/M, Merpeople, Mutual Masturbation, Smuggler Ben Solo, Starmaids, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-03 00:27:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15807612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetar/pseuds/magnetar
Summary: Just as sailors shared legends of lovely fish-people, spacefarers reported sightings of “starmaids,” whose beautiful forms tapered into comet tails. It was a convenient way to explain the whispers they heard from outside the hull, and an excuse to avoid sleeping near the windows.” -QuietPineTreesHan had warned him about taking a smuggling route that involved travelling through the beautiful and dangerous Archeon Pass. Ben isn't worried about it until his ships Hyperdrive mysteriously breaks down and something releases the Cargo bay doors, leaving him stranded and helpless in the heart of the nebula.





	Painted Ocean

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BanSW](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BanSW/gifts).



> Something that I said I would write months (literally) ago for Ban! I hope you like it! <3 Thank you so much to [Groffiction](http://groffiction.tumblr.com/) for betaing this, you deserve all the cookies![ Based on this post/tweet by Quite Pine Trees. ](https://quietpinetrees.tumblr.com/post/169243800018/as-with-every-year-some-were-not-lucky-enough-to) Rating and associated tags are for the next chapter!

‘Kriffing garbage,’ he kicks at the hyperdrive panel with the heel of his boot, sending the cover flying across the engine room. ‘Useless trash,’ he shouts, kicking the wires inside again just for good measure. It soothes the rage, edging on panic within him a little. The panel sparks spectacularly, before shutting off completely and emitting a burning smell that catches at the back of Ben’s throat. The yellowed lights above him dim momentarily before they also go out.

 

‘Fuck,’ he mutters into the darkness, hearing his words echo down the hallway. It’s eerily silent throughout the ship without the background hum of the engines and the cooling system in the cargo storage. The more he listens as his chest heaves with repressed anger, Ben can pick out a faint creaking sound from outside of the hull as the ship drifts freely through space.

 

It takes him hours working with only the assistance of dim emergency power lights, but he finally gets the ship’s power grid up and running again, if not the engines. It’s enough that he allows himself a short break, making himself a mug of caf in the tiny living quarters to clear his head. The steady, rhythmical clink of the spoon against the mug helps to ground him and he feels like he’s coming back to himself finally; that he can think clearly again and push that dark part of himself away.

 

It’s been humming in the back of his mind like a song that he can’t remember the words to, the anger that is dark red and black, churning into the darkness and tugging on the chains he has put around it. It’s all a big secret and nobody outside of his family knows about it. The Galaxy thinks he’s untalented and perfectly average. Even though he hides it from everyone, even himself – Ben Solo is anything but the harmless underachiever he portrays himself to be. The Force has chosen him too, like his mother and uncle before him, and something darker along with it.

 

Uncle Luke had looked stricken when he’d told him that he wouldn’t be going with Luke to train in the ancient Jedi Temple. Ben had been eight, his suitcase already packed in his room, and they’d been sitting on his parent's balcony watching the ships landing in the port.  The darkness had been crawling into his every vein. Corrupting him from within. 

 

The day before his father had slipped an arm across his shoulders, before sighing and pulling him in for a hug. It was rare for his father to show such affection, so young Ben had listened, really listened, when Han had said, ‘I’m going to miss you, kid. I don’t know about all this Jedi stuff, but here’s some advice that’s always helped me. You can exaggerate, you can swindle, hell you can even lie but never be cruel. Always be kind.’ And so Ben had known at that moment that he could never let that part of him out, with Han’s arms warm and tight around his shoulders showed him the truth that the dark voice inside of his head tried to twist. He could not risk becoming a Jedi.

 

He  _ thinks _ his mother understands; after all, she has done the same thing, has rejected this part of herself too. Still, Ben has seen her staring at Uncle Luke with wide, envious eyes before excusing herself to another part of the house, and he wonders. What ifs – what if his mother hadn’t rejected her gift, would he still be this way? It was tearing him at the seams; the fear of what he is and pushing it away with all his might even as it got harder was wearing him down. Has her rejection of the Force poisoned its intentions towards him? He doubts that the very thing that weaves the Galaxy together is used to being ignored. Could he have been a great Jedi like Uncle Luke if she had taught him how to handle it?

 

A sound makes him pause, pulling him from his thoughts. It’s the loud scraping, the whoosh of the Cargo bay doors opening – a sound that he has heard hundreds of times before in ports, when loading cargo on or off, while trying desperately to make conversation with the dock workers and their droids. Trying to imitate Han’s posture - shoulders back and chin up, his hips swaying in what he hopes every time is a carefree swagger, before inevitably hitting his head (on a support strut, on the side of the cargo transport, kriff even on the outstretched arm of a droid once) that has him seeing stars for days. And not the good kind, the kind that means he’s in deep space away from people. 

 

It could be a malfunction, he thinks, that bringing the power grid back online has reset the doors locking function. The Cargo is strapped to the floor, so Ben doesn’t have to worry about it being sucked out into space. He merely needs to go to the control panel next to the bay doors and renter the locking sequence.

 

But there’s another thought in the back of his mind, that sends Ben’s heart pounding. What if it’s something else…

 

He’d known this route could be dangerous; the Archeon Pass was notorious with smugglers for ships disappearing. Even Han had warned him over a mug of ale on Skree station to be careful when he’d heard where Ben had been hired to deliver to.

 

‘Take care of yourself, kid,’ Han’s words echo in Ben’s mind as he approaches the cargo hold. ‘Don’t stop for anything when you’re passing through there. Get out and don’t look back.’ He supposes that he’s not exactly breaking Han’s words. After all, he hadn’t intended to stop here, he can’t help a technical malfunction. Or whatever it is… 

 

The lights above him flicker ominously, casting the hallway in a half-light. Ben can just make out the Cargo bay door and the silhouette of the Enviro-suit that he thankfully stores just outside of it. He makes his way over to that as quietly as he can, eyes on the bay doors and barely daring to breathe.

 

With the hyperdrive offline, the ship is completely silent and Ben strains to hear even the slightest sound – a scuff, a footfall or kriff, even the sound of breathing coming from the Bay. But there’s nothing, not the slightest sound except for the shuffling as he pulls on the suit.

 

That eases his mind a little as Ben fits the helmet over his head, the locks clicking into place with a hiss. He steels himself with the thought that it must just be a malfunction; no raiders or pirates of any species could move so silently. Ben huffs our a silent breath and presses the door release.

 

Even though he’s expecting it, the strength of the vacuum inside still takes him by surprise, and Ben takes a few stumbling steps forward before his Grav boots attach to the floor. The light above him flickers, casting the Bay in a dim light. It’s completely silent inside, the bay doors shuddering in their hinges where they haven’t been properly opened. Or closed again…

 

_ Oh, _ Ben thinks, that explains the silence then. However, everything seems to be in its place. His Cargo is still there – bolted and strapped to the floor, and beyond that the nebula stretches out as far as he can see, a twisting and churning swirl of oranges and patches of dark. He can’t look away from it for a few moments, feeling his mouth falling open as he watches. It draws him in, the swirling colours of the gas and dust - as if the Nebula is alive.

 

Ben has to force his eyes away, remembering himself and taking a decisive step towards the control panel. It’s tough to even move; as soon as he lifts his foot the pull of the vacuum catches it and drags him forward so that he’s dangling towards the depth of space, tethered by one leg. He jumps into action, palms sweaty as he clicks the Grav boot on and his foot is fixed securely to the floor again. He takes a breath before taking another step and then another towards the control panel to close the bay doors, careful to look away from the void he’s standing on the edge of.

 

Ben pulls himself over to the door, fingers digging into the wall and keys-in the locking sequence as quickly as he can, lip caught between his teeth. The doors close with a reassuring thump, and the anxiety that has been pooling in Ben’s chest lifts. He’s ready to pull off his helmet when something solid and heavy strikes him from behind. The force sends him stumbling, arms flailing uselessly as he tries to grab onto something, and he topples to his knees with a crack. He calls out even if there’s nobody to hear him, hand desperately scrambling for the knife always hidden inside his boot. But a flash of orange, like a living tendril of the nebula, winds its way around his waist just as he begins to move, trapping his arms beneath it.

 

He can barely think as the adrenaline and panic courses through him, which has instincts sending his whole body thrashing, twisting and trying to escape. The more he struggles, however, the harder it gets as his limbs slow in their movement, as if they are moving through thick soup. But it’s not like the thing, whatever it is that is wound around him, is holding him any tighter – Ben can feel that its touch is light, barely even pressing into his skin. It’s something else. Almost like he’s getting tired, as if he doesn’t want to fight anymore. As if the thing isn’t a predator, as if Ben would like to submit to it, bear his neck like a prize…

 

Something is pressing into his mind, its tendrils winding around him until everything is a haze. It’s not that the panic isn’t giving him a chance to think, he realises, but that he can’t think – something is stopping him. The response is instant, practised. As he has done with the darkness so many times before, Ben gathers all of his strength and pushes the tendrils away, squashing them to the corner of his mind.

 

‘Fuck,’ a voice, cold and alien sounding, chokes out from behind him. The tendrils in his mind recede almost instantly as does the one holding his waist and Ben falls forward, catching himself with one arm. He stays like that for a few moments, propped up as his chest heaves and body aching as if he has been unloading Cargo all day. Then, when he has finally caught his breath, Ben steels himself and turns towards his attacker.

 

The creature is like nothing he has seen before. Its face and upper body are almost identical to a humans – its face is long and slender, with high and prominent cheekbones, and its chest is soft and slender looking. But that’s where the similarities end. Where its legs should be there is instead a slender, finned tail that flaps uselessly against the floor, like the Marmal fish Ben had watched the fishing droids unloading from nets along the length of the port on Chandrila. Useless creatures, they had seemed to him then, gasping for breath where there was too much air and flailing their fins against nothing. Ben watches the creature with the same strange kind of fascination as he’d had for the Marmal fish all those years ago, as the creature sprawls across the floor, clutching at its head with one webbed and clawed hand.

 

Its skin is a mix of orange and a colour that is near-translucent, that swirls up and down its body like the dust clouds of the nebula. Ben wonders if it is made of stardust. The orange is concentrated along the length of its tail and at the top of its head in what resembles hair, but also swirls unevenly across its chest and arms, changing and shifting in front of Ben’s eyes. 

 

Frankly, the creature is beautiful but Ben still feels the red seeping in across his vision, the anger rumbling from deep inside him. Beautiful things can still be deadly; the creature has certainly made a mistake trying to kill him. He reaches for his knife, the blade a comforting weight in his hand as he springs towards the creature with a growl of rage on his lips. 

 

‘Kylo Ren,’ the creature’s voice is cold and accented similarly to someone from the Core Worlds, the movement of its lips betraying the barest hint of a row of sharp white teeth. It stares him down defiantly, apparently unconcerned that Ben is halfway lunging towards him with his knife raised.

‘Who…?’ The name means nothing to him, but still, it shakes him to the core – an echo of something that has him stuttering, unable to tear his eyes away. The words pull at something deep inside of him, like a loose thread and he’s frozen to the spot. ‘What are you talking about? What are you doing here?’

 

The creature levels him with a look that borders on incredulous, one of its thin orange eyebrows arched and its lips in a thin, unsmiling line. ‘This is my home. You are trespassing,’ the creature snarls, ‘I am on the hunt.’

 

Ben feels his blood run cold. On the hunt; a creature that lives out in space with translucent skin and razor-sharp teeth that looks at him like he’s lunch. A being strong enough that it had forced the Cargo bay doors open, laid a trap for him, and tried to strike him from behind….

 

How is he still alive, if such a creature exists? How had he, simple smuggler Ben Solo, managed to escape without so much as an injury? His heart hammers in his chest, clenching the knife in his fist and he looks back at the creature with new eyes.

 

Where he had been so distracted by the beautiful patterns of its skin, Ben sees through them now – sees what they have been concealing from him. The creature is thin as if it hasn’t eaten a good meal in days – its body is all harsh angles and its arm clutches protectively around the plane of its stomach. Its tail squirms uselessly against the floor as if trying to find purchase, but it’s obvious that the creature isn’t suited to this environment. That instead of a vicious predator, a deadly hunter, the creature that lays before him is weak, starving and completely helpless on solid ground. Ben has the upper-hand here. He thinks of the Marmal fish again, of their wide emotionless eyes and gasping mouths. 

 

‘Are there others of your kind?’ He asks, regaining his confidence enough to take a step towards the creature, a smirk twisting up the corners of his lips. ‘Why are you starving?’

 

‘You wouldn’t understand, planet-born,’ the creature says, rearing back with something like fury glowing in the depths of its eyes, ‘I was born here, in the cold and darkness. I know it better than you could ever hope. I am the greatest of my kind, a leader. I could kill you before you even knew what was happening if I wanted. Be grateful that I have spared you such a fate.’ It regards him haughtily, setting off the anger that had lain dormant under Ben’s skin again, stoking it into a hot rage. Such petty arrogance, he thinks.

 

But then more quietly, so that Ben almost misses it, ‘I don’t know. I’m… alone…’ and Ben remembers Han’s words.  _ Always be kind. _

 

‘I’m Ben Solo,’ he says, pushing back the anger and the darkness with great difficulty as he takes a deep breath. ‘What’s your name?’

 

‘Hux,’ The creatures male voice admits after a second, his orange eyes staring off at a point over Ben’s shoulder. Hux’s arm, the skin smooth and translucent, curls around his concave stomach again, almost protectively, and Ben feels frozen to the spot. He can feel Hux’s eyes boring into his skin, the pull that tugs on every fibre of his being to step closer to Hux. To submit, bearing his neck to Hux and cowering pathetically.

 

The desire comes out of nowhere, seeming to radiate out of Hux’s skin and Ben can feel it tugging at his senses with whispered promises that he knows to be false. He brushes them off with a grunt, breathing out all at once through his teeth and imagining himself slicing the desires in two.

 

‘I really must be weak,’ Hux mummers quietly, tipping his head back to rest on the wall. ‘Well then. Kill me.’

 

Ben recoils, pressing a hand tightly across his mouth as soon as the words pass Hux’s lips. The silence hangs heavily between them, the air thick and stifling. Ben’s heart pounds in his ribcage   and his chest heaves at the thought; of killing Hux, of watching the light slip from his eyes…. Hux had tried to kill him after all and Ben can still feel it, can taste it on his tongue – his own bloodlust, his own willingness to kill that mirrored Hux’s. But Hux had only been hungry, hunting for food and starving.  _ Always be kind. _

 

He notices that Hux’s chest is perfectly still, his lips pressed together in a thin line; just another little detail that punctuates his alieness, his difference. He’s beautiful in the way he looks so delicate and yet at the same time as if he could kill Ben without a second thought. Ben pushes back the thrill of desire that runs through him at that thought as easily as he had brushed off his anger.

 

‘Why do you… look like that?’ He asks bluntly and inelegantly, ‘like the Nebula.’ He’s never been good with words, always big and stumbling like his build suggested. An awkward boy grown into an awkward man.

 

Hux stares at him, his glowing eyebrows shifting upwards and lips moving aside to bare the briefest suggestion of a row of pearly white teeth. ‘I am the Nebula,’ Hux sneers, turning his head up and away from Ben in a movement that can only be described as haughty, ‘and the Nebula is me. You really don’t know anything do you.’ Hux laughs and despite how nice it sounds – it's a melody that captures Ben’s heart and winds him in, like a fish on a hook. There’s definitely something about him, Ben decides, not just the obvious power Hux has to draw others to him but something more natural than that, that keeps Ben’s attention on him at all times as his heart races in his chest.

 

Hux lets out a wheezing breath, slumping forward suddenly as his body shudders and Ben is moving before he can think. He grabs Hux’s shoulders, half expecting his hands to go straight through the shimmering skin but finding that Hux is, in fact, solid and supports him. Hux coughs weakly before groaning, hanging limply in Ben’s grip.

 

Hux’s eyes that had pierced Ben’s skin with their intensity, like the stars themselves, were dull now and slipping closed behind his lids. There’s something wrong, Ben realises as a trickle of sweat runs down his spine. He’s gripped by panic, the silence around him becoming crushing. Ben has always felt at home here in deep space – alone and unbothered, but now he wishes more than anything that there was somebody to help him. His hands clench around Hux’s narrow shoulders.

 

This man, this creature had tried to kill him. And yet now Ben knows with urgent certainty that he can’t let Hux die. Hux is a predator that much is clear, at least from the speed he had moved and the surprising strength of his thin limbs, to the sharp teeth Ben had glimpsed in flashes from between thin lips. And Ben supposes that he can’t blame a predator for being hungry, for doing what a predator is programmed to do.

 

Besides, there’s a strange feeling in his chest, winding around his ribs, that sees something in him. Feels something, even after such little time. There’s a feeling of darkness around Hux, even with how brightly his skin shines, that draws Ben in. A kinship in darkness, perhaps.

 

But something is obviously wrong with Hux – a sickness perhaps, if a creature that looks like he is made of the very fabric of the Universe can get sick, that is. So Ben makes the decision quickly, gritting his teeth and scooping Hux up with one hand under his armpit and the other on his waist – as he has done a hundred times with his adopted sister when they were children, and hoists Hux up and over one shoulder.

 

Hux is light, as if he really is made of stardust, but Ben still stumbles slightly as he steps back towards the bay doors, adjusting Hux across his shoulders. Hux’s weight is all wrong, the tail flapping weak and mindless against his thigh where a pair of slim legs should be – solid and heavy, or at least compared to the rest of him.

 

They make slow progress through the corridors as Ben tries to be as careful and gentle as he can, one hand resting on Hux’s bony hip as Hux mumbles wordlessly. The ladder up to the crew quarters (in this case only Ben inhabits them), is more of a struggle; Ben has to climb one-handed, the other gripping at Hux’s soft waist while Hux’s tail catches unhelpfully on each rung throwing Ben off balance. Luckily Hux seems a little more lucid for a few moments, his mumbling stopping for the moment and his clawed, webbed hands clutching across Ben’s back. His hands are cool and wide, despite their slim and delicate appearance and Hux’s nails graze lightly at his skin even through the fabric of Ben’s shirt.

 

He finds himself a little shorter of breath than he should be and more than a little reluctant to reach the top, the feeling settling with a sickly churn in his gut. It’s disgusting of him to feel like this, Ben thinks as he reaches over the edge of the top rung and lays Hux carefully down to key in the access code to his quarters. Hux had tried to kill him, of all things. Let alone now Hux is in such a state that he can’t know what he’s doing beyond the instinct not to fall out of Ben’s grip. And yet those hands had felt so good against his skin, after so long of not being touched, that hands of the man who had tried to kill him had felt so good, regardless.

 

The sound of the door of Ben’s quarter whirring open seems to wake Hux, his pale eyes blinking open a couple of times as Ben rushes back to his side without thinking.

 

‘Come on, just a little further,’ Ben says, surprising even himself with how soft his voice sounds. He tugs helplessly at Hux’s arms while Hux stares up at him pouting petulantly despite the fact that he can barely lift his head. Hux refuses to move and they stare at each other for a moment.

 

‘Weak,’ it slips out before he can stop it, biting helplessly on his tongue even after he has said it. It feels like the already cool air has turned to ice, Hux staring at him with wide eyes as if Ben had slapped him.

 

He feels his cheeks heat with shame as his heart pounds; he’s always been blunt, rude even and truly thoughtless, the darkness within him quick to dismiss any weakness and any sign of failure. But he’s tried so hard to repress it, has seen his Mother’s body wracked with soundless sobs from around the edge of her bedroom door or his Han’s face pinch with anger before shutting off completely, when Ben has spoken without thinking – pointing out their flaws, how stupid and pathetic they are, even though he loves them both dearly and would never want to hurt them. Why would he say something like that to them?

 

Ben has seen Uncle Luke eye him with fear and recognition (not anger, never anger) when Ben had been rude or violent, and tried so very hard to push that part of him away. But the truth is that even though he is quick to see it in others, he is the weak one. The Darkness comes back, it can never be ignored.

 

But instead, Hux huffs and props himself up onto his elbows as his large tail flaps uselessly against the floor. It’s a start, Ben thinks as he pulls Hux’s arm across his shoulders and despite his tail Hux manages to shuffle into the room with Ben’s help.

 

His quarters are small and simple - a bed cut away into the rusting hull, an old wooden chest that he uses to store his clothes and possessions, and a food synthesizer built into the wall. The light in the ceiling flickers as Ben manoeuvres Hux onto the bed, pushing him gently back into the pillows and hoping Hux won’t notice what a mess it is – the sheets crumpled and shoved into a lumpy pile with his pyjamas.

 

‘They cast me out,’ Hux says, voice slurring as the sickness seems to take hold of him again. Ben wonders, somewhere in the back of his mind, if Hux knows that he’s saying all of this. ‘The others. They didn’t like me, they were too foolish to see their own mistakes,’ Hux’s voice is sharp with anger despite his pale and weak complexion, ‘I would’ve brought order to their chaos.’

 

Ben smirks at the contrast between Hux’s fighting words and the way he huffs weakly, Hux’s eyes slipping closed again. But at the same time he wonders about Hux, as he tucks him beneath the blankets. For the first time he notices how  _ truly _ emaciated Hux is, Hux’s already translucent skin making his limbs look even thinner. What has happened to Hux?

 


End file.
